If John Grantham Browne had a fault--which, mind you, I am not prepared
to admit--it lay in the fact that he was the possessor of a cynical wit
which he was apt at times to use upon his friends with somewhat
peculiar effect. Circumstances alter cases, and many people would have
argued that he was perfectly entitled to say what he pleased. When a
man is worth a hundred and twenty thousand pounds a year--which, worked
out, means ten thousand pounds a month, three hundred and twenty-eight
pounds, fifteen shillings and fourpence a day, and four-and-sixpence
three-farthings, and a fraction over, per minute--he may surely be
excused if he becomes a little sceptical as to other people's motives,
and is apt to be distrustful of the world in general. Old Brown, his
father, without the "e," as you have doubtless observed, started life
as a bare-legged street arab in one of the big manufacturing
centres--Manchester or Birmingham, I am not quite certain which. His
head, however, must have been screwed on the right way, for he made few
mistakes, and everything he touched turned to gold. At thirty his bank
balance stood at fifteen thousand pounds; at forty it had turned the
corner of a hundred thousand; and when he departed this transitory
life, a young man in everything but years, he left his widow, young
John's mother--his second wife, I may remark in passing, and the third
daughter of the late Lord Rushbrooke--upwards of three and a half
million pounds sterling in trust for the boy.

As somebody wittily remarked at the time, young John, at his father's
death and during his minority, was a monetary Mohammed--he hovered
between two worlds: the Rushbrookes, on one side, who had not two
sixpences to rub against each other, and the Brownes, on the other, who
reckoned their wealth in millions and talked of thousands as we humbler
mortals do of half-crowns. Taken altogether, however, old Brown was
not a bad sort of fellow. Unlike so many parvenus, he had the good
sense, the "e" always excepted, not to set himself up to be what he
certainly was not. He was a working-man, he would tell you with a
twinkle in his eye, and he had made his own way in the world. He had
never in his life owed a halfpenny, nor, to the best of his knowledge,
had he ever defrauded anybody; and, if he _had_ made his fortune out of
soap, well--and here his eyes would glisten--soap was at least a useful
article, and would wash his millions cleaner than a good many other
commodities he might mention. In his tastes and habits he was
simplicity itself. Indeed, it was no unusual sight to see the old
fellow, preparatory to setting off for the City, coming down the steps
of his magnificent town house, dressed in a suit of rough tweed, with
the famous bird's-eye neck-cloth loosely twisted round his throat, and
the soft felt hat upon his head--two articles of attire which no
remonstrance on the part of his wife and no amount of ridicule from the
comic journals could ever induce him to discard. His stables were full
of carriages, and there was a cab-rank within a hundred yards of his
front door, yet no one had ever seen him set foot in either. The soles
of his boots were thick, and he had been accustomed to walk all his
life, he would say, and he had no intention of being carried till he
was past caring what became of him. With regard to his son, the apple
of his eye, and the pride of his old age, his views were entirely
different. Nothing was good enough for the boy. From the moment he
opened his eyes upon the light, all the luxuries and advantages wealth
could give were showered upon him. Before he was short-coated, upwards
of a million had been placed to his credit at the bank, not to be
touched until he came of age. After he had passed from a dame's school
to Eton, he returned after every holiday with sufficient money loose in
his pocket to have treated the whole school. When, in the proper order
of things, he went on to Christ Church, his rooms were the envy and the
admiration of the university. As a matter of fact, he never knew what
it was to have to deny himself anything; and it says something for the
lad's nature, and the father's too, I think, that he should have come
out of it the honest, simple Englishman he was. Then old John died;
his wife followed suit six months later; and on his twenty-fifth
birthday the young man found himself standing alone in the world with
his millions ready to his hand either to make or mar him. Little
though he thought it at the time, there was a sufficiency of trouble in
store for him.

He had town houses, country seats, moors and salmon-fishings, yachts
(steam and sailing), racehorses, hunters, coach-horses, polo-ponies,
and an army of servants that a man might very well shudder even to
think of. But he lacked one thing; he had no wife. Society, however,
was prepared to remedy this defect. Indeed, it soon showed that it was
abnormally anxious to do so. Before he was twenty-two it had been
rumoured that he had become engaged to something like a score of girls,
each one lovelier, sweeter, and boasting blood that was bluer than the
last. A wiser and an older head might well have been forgiven had it
succumbed to the attacks made upon it; but in his veins, mingled with
the aristocratic Rushbrooke blood, young John had an equal portion of
that of the old soap-boiler; and where the one led him to accept
invitations to country houses at Christmas, or to be persuaded into
driving his fair friends, by moonlight, to supper at the Star and
Garter, the other enabled him to take very good care of himself while
he ran such dangerous risks. In consequence he had attained the
advanced age of twenty-eight when this story opens, a bachelor, and
with every prospect of remaining so. But the Blind Bow-Boy, as every
one is aware, discharges his bolts from the most unexpected quarters;
and for this reason you are apt to find yourself mortally wounded in
the very place, of all others, where you have hitherto deemed yourself
most invulnerable.

It was the end of the second week in August; Parliament was up; and
Browne's steam-yacht, the _Lotus Blossom_, twelve hundred tons, lay in
the harbour of Merok, on the Gieranger Fjord, perhaps the most
beautiful on the Norwegian coast. The guests on board had been
admirably chosen, an art which in most instances is not cultivated as
carefully as it might be. An ill-assorted house party is bad enough;
to bring the wrong men together on the moors is sufficient to spoil an
otherwise enjoyable holiday; but to ask Jones (who doesn't smoke, who
is wrapped up in politics, reads his leader in the _Standard_ every
morning, and who has played whist every afternoon with the same men at
his club for the last ten years) and De Vere Robinson (who never reads
anything save the _Referee_ and the _Sportsman_, who detests whist, and
who smokes the strongest Trichinopolis day and night) to spend three
weeks cooped up on a yacht would be like putting a kitten and a
cat-killing fox-terrier into a corn-bin and expecting them to have a
happy time together. Browne, however, knew his business, and his
party, in this particular instance, consisted of the Duchess of
Matlock, wife of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and her
two pretty daughters, the Ladies Iseult and Imogen; Miss Verney, the
beauty of the season; the Honourable Silas Dobson, the American
Ambassador; his wife and daughter; George Barrington-Marsh, of the 1st
Life; and little Jimmy Foote, a man of no permanent address, but of
more than usual shrewdness, who managed to make a good income out of
his friends by the exercise of that peculiar talent for pleasing which
rendered him indispensable whenever and wherever his fellow-creatures
were gathered together. In addition to those I have mentioned there
was a man whose interest in this story is so great that it is necessary
he should be described at somewhat greater length.

Should you deem it worth your while to make inquiries at any of the
Chancelleries in order to ascertain whether they happen to be
acquainted with a certain Monsieur Felix Maas, you would probably be
surprised to learn that he is as well known to them as--well--shall we
say the Sultan of Turkey himself? though it would be difficult to
mention in exactly what capacity. One thing is quite certain; it would
be no easy task to find a man possessed of such peculiar
characteristics as this retiring individual. At first glance his name
would appear to settle his nationality once and for all. He would tell
you, however, that he has no right to be considered a Dutchman. At the
same time he would probably omit to tell you to which kingdom or empire
he ascribes the honour of his birth. If you travelled with him you
would discover that he speaks the language of every country west of the
Ural Mountains with equal fluency; and though he would appear to be the
possessor of considerable wealth, he never makes the least parade of
it. In fact, his one and only idea in life would seem to be always
irreproachably dressed and groomed, never to speak unless spoken to,
and at all times to act as if he took no sort of interest whatever in
any person or thing save that upon which he happened to be engaged at
the moment. When necessity demands it he can be exceedingly amusing;
he never allows himself to be seen with a man or woman who would be
likely to cause him the least loss of prestige; he gives charming
little dinners _а la fourchette_ at his rooms in town twice or thrice
during the season, and is rumoured to be the author, under a _nom de
plume_, of one of the best works on Continental politics that has seen
the light since Talleyrand's day. So much for Felix Maas.

At one time or another there have been a number of exquisite yachts
built to satisfy the extravagances of millionaires, but never one so
perfect in every detail, and so replete with every luxury, as Browne's
_Lotus Blossom_. The state-rooms were large and airy; beds occupied
the places of the usual uncomfortable bunks; the dining-saloon was
situated amidships, where the vibration of the screw was least felt;
the drawing-room was arranged aft; and a dainty boudoir for the ladies
extended across the whole width of the counter. The smoking-room was
in a convenient position under the bridge, and the bathrooms, four in
number, were luxury and completeness itself. Add to the other
advantages the presence of Felicien, that prince of _chefs_, and little
Georges, once so intimately